Nuclear Power – 1
About a week ago, I was up hiking in the San Bernardino Mountains, and the rocks there happen to be very old. The Baldwin Gneiss formation, which comprises the central block of the San Bernardinos, is dated to older than 1.7 billion years old, in the Proterozoic Period. For perspective, animals evolved closer to 500 million years ago, and the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. And yet the same pile of ancient stone is also very young, being thrust up along the San Andreas Fault as we speak, perhaps as recently as within the last 2 million years. Mount San Gorgonio is thus at once extremely ancient and very young. In human terms, if the Baldwin Gneiss were 80 years old, the uplift of the San Bernardinos would be a 1-month-old infant. The views from atop Mt San Gorgonio at 11,503-ft were incredible. The day before was a Santa Ana wind event, so all the smog had been lifted from the LA Basin, uncovering a panorama that swept over Southern California. I could see up to Olancha Peak in the southern Sierras, Telescope Peak over Death Valley, Charleston Peak by Las Vegas, the Kelso dunes of Mojave National Preserve, almost into Arizona at the Chocolate Mountains, almost into Mexico at the Salton Sea, down into San Diego at Point Loma, past the Channel Islands into the vast Pacific. I was lucky to be able to slip in the hike in December, before the serious snows and icy weather come. There were already small patches of snow and ice.
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